Important Books & Reports

Glyphosate/Roundup, falsely claimed by Monsanto to be safe and harmless, has become the world’s most widely and pervasively used herbicide; it has brought rising tides of birth defects, cancers, fatal kidney disease, sterility, and dozens of other illnesses - more

Ban GMOs Now - Dr. Mae-Wan Ho and Dr. Eva Sirinathsinghji

Health & environmental hazards
especially in the light of the new genetics - more

Living Rainbow H2O - Dr. Mae-Wan Ho

A unique synthesis of the latest findings in the quantum physics and chemistry of water that tells you why water is the “means, medium, and message of life” - more

The Rainbow and the Worm - the Physics of Organisms - Dr. Mae-Wan Ho

“Probably the Most Important Book for the Coming Scientific Revolution” - more

Letter to Ventura County supervisor Steve Bennett on the dangers of glyphosate

I write in support of a worldwide ban on
glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides on behalf of the Institute of Science in Society (I-SIS), a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to reclaiming
science for the public good.

As part of the work of I-SIS, and also as a member on the
roster of scientific experts of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, I and my
colleagues have been monitoring and reviewing extensive scientific literature
and empirical evidence on the use of genetically modified (GM) crops and
livestock since 1994, and making the information available to policy-makers and
the public worldwide via our website: www.i-sis.org.uk,
which is archived by the British Library as part of the UK’s national
documentary heritage, as well as our quarterly publication provided free to key
policy-makers, Science in Society (SiS), which is also publicly distributed
in the UK, US and Canada, and open to subscription both online and in paper
copies.

I highlight the health and environmental hazards of
glyphosate, the world’s top-selling herbicide, largely because it is used with
glyphosate tolerant GM crops now planted on 85 percent of the 148 million
hectares given over to GM crops globally. These hazards have been discovered
and described in hundreds of research papers published by scientists
independent of the industry in the US and in Europe.

In the field, extensive studies by US scientists have
confirmed that glyphosate and glyphosate-tolerant crops poisons and soil (Scientists
Reveal Glyphosate Poisons Crops and Soil, and Glyphosate Tolerant
Crops Bring Diseases and Death, SiS 47).
More than 40 crop diseases are now linked to glyphosate use, including Fusarium
head blight, root rot, and sudden death syndrome. Glyphosate is a strong,
general chelator that immobilizes nutrients in the plant and in the soil,
rendering them unavailable. Moreover, glyphosate stimulates the growth of
pathological fungi and enhances the virulence of pathogens such as Fusarium
while killing beneficial micro-oganisms such as nitrogen fixing bacteria and Pseudomonas,
an important multifunctional bacterium in the rhizophere producing numerous
secondary metabolites that suppress harmful pathogens. The glyphosate tolerant
GM crops actually take up and concentrate the herbicide, and secrete it through
the roots, thereby poisoning the next crop to be planted in the soil. This
research has been documented in more than a hundred research papers published
in peer-reviewed scientific journals. That’s not all.

Earlier this year, USDA senior scientist Don Huber sent
an “emergency” warning to US Secretary of Agriculture warming of a new plant
pathogen in Roundup Ready GM soybean and corn that may be responsible for high
rates of infertility and spontaneous abortions in livestock reported by farmers
(Emergency!
Pathogen New to Science Found in Roundup Ready GM Crops?SiS 50). He wrote: “I have studied plant pathogens for more than
50 years. We are now seeing an unprecedented trend of increasing plant and
animal diseases and disorders. This pathogen may be instrumental to
understanding and solving this problem. It deserves immediate attention with
significant resources to avoid a general collapse of our critical agricultural
infrastructure.”

The overwhelming evidence on the health and environmental
hazards of glyphosate demands an immediate ban on glyphosate herbicides and glyphosate
tolerant crops. I sincerely hope that you can take the lead by banning
glyphosate herbicides in your county.

Neither GM crops nor herbicides are necessary for
productive agriculture. On the contrary, a growing
scientific consensus now see the need to replace industrial, fossil-fuel
intensive agriculture with organic, agro-ecological farming in order to save
the climate and feed the world, based on abundant evidence that the latter is
much more productive as well as resistant and resilient to the vagaries of
climate change.

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There are 6 comments on this article so far. Add your comment above.

Benjamin Edom Comment left 7th September 2011 16:04:42A brilliant and telling article. I agree with all main points and particularly your key demands for democratic and responsible science.
You have made great strides in renewing my faith in scientists.
Many thanks.

Simon Hodges Comment left 7th September 2011 20:08:08The depth of your physics is shown in your clarity on social and economic issues. Organic materialism hits the nail on the head. I have been spellbound by the Rainbow and the Worm (my physics education extends to A-level) and this is more proof of your brilliant, courageous mind. Am spreading far and wide.
Simon
http://diaryofanunbornwriter.blogspot.com

Todd Millions Comment left 16th September 2011 09:09:18Exellent-
One caveat-A levee on industry to pay for indipendent research.
Sin taxes are a canadian specialty-but
Goverments get very addicted to such vice revenue very fast.So they do much to protect the vices.

Matthew Colborn Comment left 23rd September 2011 11:11:02I agree strongly with most of what you've said, especially about corporate science not being open or democratic.
I've read the 'Rainbow and the Worm,' and whilst I think that these holistic views seem a vast improvement on reductionist materialism, I still do not think they go far enough as far as consciousness is concerned. e.g. the gap between phenomenological states and holistic physical states still seems wide to me. Second, if we insist that the 'left' adopt a particular ideology, even a holistic one, aren't we still imposing one monolothic point of view on people?
I think that people and groups should be just as free to decide for themselves on scientific issues as on others.If they are not, you're still acting like a power elite. Replacing a dogma of reductionist materialsim with one of holistic materialism just seems like a swapping of dogmas to me, and not a truly open or democratic process. One alternative is a pluralistic approach that welcomes a diversity of views and accepts dissent.

Mike Mortier Comment left 15th October 2011 21:09:18Thank God for courageous and humane scientists like Mae-Wan Ho. Science must be controlled by democracy just as the business world and even religion must be if we are to make progress to a more just, cooperative and safe planet. I’m 76 years young and I know it can be done, provided we all support people like Ms. Ho.
P.S. I loved her book ‚The Rainbow and the Worm‘, even though the thermodynamics gave me a headache!

George Hewitt Comment left 7th November 2014 22:10:12Excellent article. I am a STEM Ambassador - talk to Year 10 and up pupils - to try and address the shortage of Engineers and other scientific/technicial expertise.
I will quote from this article at my next talk, next Tuesday.